


Exposed Brick

by swat117



Series: Goodbye to All That [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David Rose is well adjusted, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Husbands, M/M, New York City, Patrick Brewer recovering people pleaser, Patrick Brewer theatre kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swat117/pseuds/swat117
Summary: Three years down the line, Rose Apothecary opens a holiday pop-up shop in Brooklyn. Patrick thinks David has unresolved issues about moving to New York. Turns out, Patrick is the one with the issues.or, tfw you thought you dealt with those feelings because your life is amazing and you have everything you want and love your husband but actually you've been ignoring some unhealthy emotional patterns that have been lying dormant for years
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Goodbye to All That [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087115
Comments: 179
Kudos: 701





	Exposed Brick

**Author's Note:**

> _New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. To think of “living” there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not “live” at Xanadu._  
>  \- Joan Didion

One of his reoccurring nightmares is this: after Rachel drops into town and he and David take a week apart, they never get back together. Instead, when Patrick suggests they focus on the business, David doesn't push back. He can see it happening because he can imagine himself never working up the courage to admit to David what he felt for a second time; he knows how hard it was the first time to admit and how if David hadn’t kissed him in the car Patrick may never have had the courage to. He can see it happening because four months into their relationship he hadn’t been clear enough or honest enough for David not to second guess his affection. In chapter two of this horror show, he lives the rest of his life knowing it was his own fault.

He can see too easily a year of going home from the store alone, crying into his tea, and falling asleep just to wake up and do it all over again. Would Rosebud Motel still have gotten their seed money? Would David have moved away to New York then, not needing to consider Patrick in the equation? Worse than Patrick spending the rest of his life pining for David across the register (which he would gladly do if it meant seeing him each day), he might never have gotten to see David again.

But it didn’t happen, of course. Would never have. In bed, later, on that night David had lip-synced for his life, Patrick, unable to keep the questions from bubbling up asked, “Would you ever have let it go? Would you have let me go on thinking you didn’t want to get back together?”

David, the big spoon, a second olive branch, replied quickly with an eye roll Patrick couldn’t see but felt, “Of course, because I’m so well known for holding my tongue and never saying what I think.”

Which was...fair enough. Patrick, who had a reputation for being the dependable one in the pair, the go-getter, the caretaker, was less honest. He wanted to be. He’d gotten better. Doesn't even recognize the version of himself that proposed to Rachel just to avoid conflict. But he still has that people-pleasing gene in his blood, coursing through his veins, pumping his heart with _make it easier for them_ and _you can be the one to take the sacrifice._

This might be Patrick’s least evolved quality. It was so hard to separate this unhealthy impulse from the genuine one to take care of those he loved. If he could be the one to suffer the blow, why not? Why cause David pain that Patrick could take on instead?

A side effect of this modality is that he often suffers alone. If Patrick goes out of his way not to cause a partner pain, he’s certainly not going to ask them to take on his own. Instead, he mulls it over and over and over again in his head. Obsesses, replays, tries to avoid saying what he really thinks until he has weighed all the options and knows that whatever conflict he’s about to start is fully and totally worth it. He spirals, okay? Call it what it is. He’s evolved enough to do that.

And that’s where he is now - spiraling. Because three years and a few weeks after it first came up - three years and a few weeks after his husband, the love of his life, chose to stay - David asks him to move to New York.

*

The intervening three years and a few weeks since their wedding have been a huge success for Patrick, thank you for asking. Both personally _and_ professionally.

The Rosebud Motel Group becomes, to put it lightly, a wild success. They leap out of the gate, opening a number of motels in just eight months that stuns and impresses Patrick’s most cynical business brain. As a result, in their first year as the toiletries supplier, Rose Apothecary exceeds a production level that Patrick could never have dreamed of when he first asked David to partner. In the second year, with even more locations open, they start to do bathrobes, duvets, custom candle scents specific to each region and Patrick buys David a car. Not leases, straight up pays for it in full. In the third year, a mini-apothecary opens in the lobby of all the motels that have the space for it and Patrick sees profits he never thought he’d see in his entire lifetime, margins he knows David has seen over and over again.

He thinks about the scope of his dreams before he met David, what he thought of as success and where he placed the limits of his own potential. It’s comical to think that what it took to expand those horizons was his love for this person and not something practical like going back to get his MBA. Wait, should he go back and get his MBA now? He would pay that amount in tuition if it could have brought him David even one year earlier.

_David..._

“Patrick. Did you hear what I said?”

Oh. Yes, he did. “New York. Moving to New York.”

David barrels on. “Stevie and I want you to look over this proposal for the Williamsburg pop up? Sorry I sort of kept it under wraps - we’ll only do it if you think it’s a good idea, of course. I wanted to make the proposal...well, I wanted to impress you with it I guess.”

On autopilot, Patrick supplies, “I’m always impressed by you."

“The neighborhood is the right positioning for the brand and the market exposure would be incredible. We only have to go for two months - November and December, to be ready to open up after Thanksgiving through Christmas. Of course, it means spending the holiday away from here but we’ll still be together? And Alexis promised me she’d stay in town as well. Think of it as a vacation? A vacation with a lot of upside for the business and also we’ll be working all the time.”

Two months. Hm.

“Earth to Patrick?”

Two months. He could do that.

*

David travels ahead of him at the start of November when a staff scheduling error leaves no one to cover at the Schitt’s Creek store for the better part of a week. Patrick misses David with a desperate strength no less than four minutes after dropping him at the departures terminal, but he’s not lying to say he is glad for a few days to work himself up to this trip out of the watchful and excited gaze of his husband. He’s done his normal Patrick-level recce, spending days on Google Maps street view, studying the subway, making a list of restaurants he’d like to try and places he thinks might delight David. It is exactly this amount of preparation that lets him know he’s in over his head.

David’s flight lands in the late afternoon. Patrick gets a text ( _Landed. Safe. Cabbing to Alexis. Suitcases not lost thank GOD. Miss you x_ ) twenty-seven minutes after the flight tracking app alerts him of the official gate time.

 _Have fun with your sister. Say hi. Call me later. Love you_ , he replies.

Around ten, he picks up FaceTime.

“If you’re calling to tell me you’ve left me for Timothee Chalamet, I don’t want to hear it.”

It’s dark on David’s end of the video, an apartment with no overhead lights on, but it’s New York, so the moon and the street filter in and cast a colored glow across his cheek. “He’s a bit young, but I’m honored you think I could pull that.”

“Hi, David.”

“Hi, babe.”

Patrick lets out the breath he realizes he’s been holding for the last 8 hours. David’s eyes crinkle at the corner. He looks a little flush - hard to tell in the dark, but a fair guess he’s had some wine. “Did you have a nice evening?”

“Mmm. Alexis surprised me with Quality Italian - they have this chicken parm pizza. By which I mean it’s a piece of chicken parm as big as a pizza? They slice it for you like that even. It’s. Babe. It’s unexplainable. I can’t believe I went this long without it. It’s nice to be back here. On new terms. But weird too.” There’s a recognition in David’s eyes that Patrick can’t trace. "I wish you were here.”

“Give it four days, I haven’t forgotten about you yet.” He can’t even make that sound like a joke.

“Alexis’ place is shockingly cute. Gonna crash here tonight. The thought of going home alone to an empty apartment in Brooklyn is so 2010. Cept I have to sleep on the couch.” David frowns like a melodramatic clown. "No phone sex tonight."

“Says you. No one here on my end to interrupt. I’ll do as I please.”

“I married a selfish perv,” David says, but can't keep the smirk off his face. It shouldn't turn Patrick on, but Patrick is weak. And now he’s thinking about the send-off David gave him yesterday and it’s getting worse. “Mr. Brewer! Are you thinking about last night?”

God damn mind reader.

*

David meets him at the airport which is so unnecessary and so, so welcome.

They grab a cab to the Airbnb David found them on North 12th Street (as if that means anything to Patrick). Some stereotypical converted factory space with floor to ceiling cross-hatch windows, industrial accents, and exposed brick. _Do you even live in New York if you don’t have exposed brick?_ , David had squawked while showing him the listing for the first time. It’s walking distance to their temp storefront which is all that Patrick requested. He’s happy, as ever, to let David control the aesthetics of their life.

It’s ten minutes before David insists, like a giggling schoolboy, on christening the place, starting with the living room.

“I think about all the terrible sex I had in this city,” David says, straddling Patrick’s hips. "Okay, well, a lot of it was great sex, but you know, unhealthy, whatever, and I feel like this is a big fuck you to all those memories.”

Patrick groans. “Could you maybe not bring up all the great sex you had with other people while you’re touching my-“ and eats his words as David twists his hand to the left and up.

They fall asleep on the couch after that and wake a few hours later in the black, early winter evening. Patrick is conscious before David, doesn’t rush to wake him up though he’s both starving and in dire need of a shower.

He sees, in person now, the way the city street lights bounce off David’s face in the dark. A traffic light changes from red to green and catches over an eyebrow bone like glittery eye shadow. They spent five freaking days apart and Patrick is out of his mind with joy to be cuddled on a cramped couch, back hurting, left arm tingly and asleep, holding David.

They move as a unit into the kitchen for sustenance and David’s round two. They eat deconstructed sandwiches - David stocked up on groceries already, thank god - which really just means they feed each other cheese and lunch meats straight out of the packet, chasing with a bite of bread. Patrick sinks onto his knees and David clutches the marble countertop.

They wade from there to the shower, and with a soapy hand David fingers Patrick to his second orgasm of the day. David, who thinks of all the details, has Rose Apothecary robes for them in the apartment. They bundle up and stream a video of a roaring fireplace from YouTube to the bedroom TV.

David is propped up against the headboard with Patrick laying between his legs, chest flush to back, playing with Patrick’s damp hair and making it stick up at strange angles. Patrick feels like he’s fifteen again - young and impossible.

“It’s like we never left the cottage,” David says in a put-on, twee southern twang, and shrieks “You bitch!” when Patrick pinches playfully at his leg hair.

Patrick falls asleep, though he’s not sure when, and wakes up in the small hours, too hot under layers of comforter, robe, and David. He wriggles out of the bed, swaps the robe for boxers, and pads into the kitchen for water. He leans against the counter and drinks, resting a hand on the same spot David had flexed and curled his fingers against earlier. The changing streetlights bounce off the stone top now.

A car honks outside - that’s new. He doesn’t quite know where the forks are kept - that’s new. David gives a little sleep snort - some things, the ones that matter to Patrick, stay the same.

*

There is not much time to paint the town the first week Patrick is there. They spend most of it recording shipments, monitoring the install, and doing a weirdly massive amount of press interviews organized by Alexis. They spend one entire Thursday at a meeting for the Brooklyn Small Business Association and come out of it with a dozen partners for holiday event workshops to host. Cookie decorating classes and gift wrapping socials galore. David was right - this town (would you call it a town?) is very on-brand.

Spending his first week of New York in the 15 block radius of Williamsburg makes the whole thing feel very small, approachable. This can’t be what he was talking about, David, when he relayed his youthful escapades and drunken nights. This, if this is what New York is, is doable for Patrick. For now.

Setting up the pop-up is more hands-on labor than Patrick or David have done in years, but satisfying and sweetly nostalgic. It’s all terribly similar to life in the first month of their first shop. Stevie gets into the city shortly after Patrick, having wrapped up her biannual east coast location tour, and her added presence in the shop makes it even less distinguishable from their normal life back home.

They end most nights that first week at the bar around the corner from the store, the three of them. It’s usually too late and they are too tired to wander any further outside of their purview. Alexis joins one night when she was already in Brooklyn overseeing a local news camera crew’s visit but says with finality that she is _not a senior at NYU film school, and will not be seen around these parts without an alibi,_ which is when they make plans to meet on Manhattan to get their 'party on' soon. Her words, of course. Patrick wonders what David is sacrificing to live here in Brooklyn, across the East River, instead of Soho, the Village, or in Nolita near his sister.

He tables that spiral for later and focuses on the beer in his hand. The bar has on tap a number of local brews and a custom one from Brooklyn Brewery just down the road. It’s an unfussy space, perfectly lit dim, and quiet on weeknights. It’s a space Patrick could get used to, can see the quality in having a local haunt like this, a few notches above in variety and cleanliness than what the Wobbly Elm provides. David looks more at home here, which, after putting his insecurities about trapping David in their small town aside, warms Patrick to see.

He’s only ever known David as a fish out of water, has never seen him swim in his own habitat. He regrets not taking him here on a trip sooner, if just to see the microscopic relaxation in the lines on David's face as he chats with the bartender about the gentrification of the borough. Of course Patrick follows the conversation, he knows what all the words mean, but the nuance and passion of their debate is lost on him. David’s talking to his people about his place. Patrick spends the night shit-talking them with Stevie, which is its own type of fun.

They hold hands on the walk back to the apartment, dropping Stevie off at the William Vale Hotel which has given her a free room for her stay as some sort of industry gesture. That or Stevie met the general manager at a conference last year, if you catch the drift. Patrick can’t remember but makes a mental note to ask David for the gossip later.

"Amenities! Room service! A pool!" David whines for the 5th day in a row. “Where did we go wrong in this life!”

“It’s November, and the pool is outdoors,” Patrick notes.

“If we were staying somewhere with a concierge, that would be their problem to remedy, not mine."

They hug Stevie goodnight and trek the remaining two blocks north home.

Once inside, the evening progresses per usual. Patrick is in bed already, checking emails on his phone, and David is on step six of nine in the bathroom. Patrick quits out of the mail app and opens his contacts, thumb hovering over David’s card. He dials.

The ringing in the bathroom cuts through silent night and echoes off the tiles. Patrick hears David mutter to himself _At this hour?_ , hears the clink of his moisturizer jar hitting the counter, and waits.

“Why are you calling me? I’m right here.” David sounds confused, but not annoyed as he peeks from the en suite into the bedroom.

Patrick makes a _who, me?_ face. David rolls his eyes and answers the call.

“In-room dining, may I take your order?”

There’s a pause on the line as David leans his head back to squint at Patrick again. He locks eyes and says through a bitten grin, “Yes, I’d like to order something off your late-night menu?”

“Of course, what can we get you?” Patrick is the picture of innocence.

“You don’t happen to have any...dashing brunettes?”

“As a valued guest at our hotel, it’s my pleasure to inform you that there is already one waiting in your room at this very moment."

“Your customer service is impeccable. I’ll make sure to leave a good review on Yelp.” David hangs up the phone and poses against the door frame, eyes lit and waiting.

Patrick is sure the smile on his face is embarrassingly large and gives everything away, but he still tries for a sultry flutter of eyelashes and lifts up the covers in invitation. “Your food is getting cold."

“I thought I ordered a quote 'dashing brunette,’” David says, crawling onto the bed, “Not an annoyingly self-satisfied, mmpf -," and Patrick cuts him off with a kiss.

*

It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, three weeks into Patrick’s stay. It’s late and they are on the corner of 7th Avenue and something, sorry, Patrick has had a few or four margaritas and doesn’t really know.

"Dollar slice! Dollar slice!” David and Alexis are chanting and dragging him and Stevie down the block. They lean against the metal facade of someplace called Two Bro’s and eat thin, greasy slices. David smiles and chews. Patrick smiles and chews and looks at David.

“ _This_ is New York pizza?” he hears himself ask.

"Trust me,” David starts. “Once you’ve been saved by the dollar slice after matching Cara Delevingne shot for shot at The 13th Step, you will understand what a godsend it is.” Patrick is thankful to never have that experience but takes David's word. The pizza’s not bad.

They are dragged down another block. “Our final act!” David says with a flourish, opening the door to a basement bar.

Christmas lights blanket the low ceiling, and a hundred screaming people are packed into the space like sardines, fogging the windows. No, not screaming people - singing ones.

On the right wall, a live pianist bangs out the underscore of "Magic to Do” from Pippin. David says something about getting drinks and disappears to the far end of the room with Stevie. Alexis puts an arm around Patrick's shoulder and sways to the music. He thinks she doesn’t know the words, or even the show it’s from, but she’s enjoying herself and the crowd.

Patrick is…overcome. As he scans the room it becomes instantly clear: they are in a gay bar. If the show tunes didn’t give it away, the patrons do. He doesn’t want to profile, but he can recognize his own.

What cuts him most is that everyone here is so free. Belting at the top of their lungs, punctuating lines with a gesture, trading moments in recognition with their neighbor. More than anything the room feels unguarded. Like everyone took off their insecurities at the door with their winter coats.

When was the last time David was here? And what if Patrick had wandered in 10 years ago, confused and incognizant and laid eyes on David pressed against another guy? Would that have been enough to knock him out of his frame? He’s heard that representation breeds understanding. If he’d just been exposed to it, could he have had this all along?

David's back, passing a drink into his hand before pivoting over to the piano. He watches David drop a twenty in the fishbowl on top of the upright’s lid and lean in to speak to the player. Patrick makes out the thank you on David’s lips, but nothing else. When David turns around he locks eyes with Patrick, knows he’s been watched the whole time, holds his gaze as he squeezes through the crowd and finds his way back to their perch.

David wraps his arms around Patrick from behind, hums into his ear the chorus of 'Corner of the Sky' as the bar sings its way through the score. They make it to 'On the Right Track,' the bar giving attention over to an effortlessly fabulous waitress who riffs her way through the song while collecting tips.

“I saw the revival,” David says, breath in Patrick’s ear. “ The leading player was amazing. A sort of leather-wearing dominatrix circus ringmaster.”

“Mmm, is that your type?”

“I dabble. But I really had the hots for Pippin. An innocent young man searching for love and fulfillment in the world? Shaggy brown hair? Looks cute in a knit sweater?”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

That seems to be the end of this setlist, and the accompanist announces a ten-minute break. The bar is not any less quiet as enthusiastic chat fills the air.

“I wish we had video of that time we brought mom here,” Alexis chimes in. Patrick nor Stevie can contain their jaw drop at this image.

“She complained about the lack of follow spots, then held court at the piano for two hours singing through the entire tracklist of Barbra Streisand's _The Way We Were,_ ” David adds on. “The first five songs we couldn’t tell if the bar was on her side, but her rendition of 'What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?’ won them over. There’s a signed headshot of her hanging over the urinals to this day.”

“It’s still there?” Stevie’s eyes are wide and conspiratorial.

“What do you think I did when we got here, if not immediately go and check?”

The pianist is back now, raising his glass to the room before settling hands on the keys. Patrick hears Stevie’s gasp before recognition hits him. He reaches out to hold David’s hand as the room swells in a chorus of _maybe this times._

They stay for a few more songs, but everyone’s tired. None of them are 25 anymore. Stevie runs off to meet up with someone named Mark (so it _was_ the general manager) and Patrick and David walk east on Bleeker with Alexis to her place.

They sleep on the pullout couch and not even David stops to complain about it. Patrick is drunk on heavy-pour vodka cranberries and awareness.

*

It’s Sunday now and they'd made the plan sleep in the night before. They deserve a day off before the big opening tomorrow. And even if they didn’t, they are ahead of Patrick’s meticulous schedule anyway.

Despite the promise of a lazy morning, however, it appears that David Rose has A Plan.

“How is this possible,” Patrick groans up at an already dressed David who is pulling the covers off him and telling him he has fifteen minutes to get ready and take him to brunch or divorce is on the table. David’s joking, of course, but he’s not gonna risk it.

Patrick takes a shower, three aspirin, and five slow breaths. Outside now, walking up 2nd Ave, he takes David’s hand.

“You’re cute hungover,” David smiles and squeezes back.

“And you’re a menace sober. These dumplings better be worth it.”

They are totally worth it. They order a dozen assorted kinds filled with cheese and potato and the special monthly stuffing-and-cranberry filled ones. They order latkes with apple sauce and blintzes topped in raspberry puree. Patrick has an honest to god cup of drip coffee.

The restaurant is basically just a diner. The dishware isn’t fancier than you’d find at the café, even if the food is head and shoulders above. Patrick wonders if he needs to reconsider what he thought David was chasing in New York - was it fame or quality? There is nothing fussy, nothing extravagant, nothing elegant about their brunch. David, in Prada sunglasses and a Saint Laurent jumper, still fits right in.

Five minutes after settling their bill, Patrick is ushered into a three-story bookstore that’s bustling even on a Sunday morning.

“We don’t have to get anything but I literally cannot walk past here without going in,” David explains as if Patrick needed a reason to follow him anywhere.

They wander through tables of staff picks and bestsellers and more colorful groupings like one table labeled 'Too Cool For Categories.' Another one, 'Men at Sea.' Back in the corner of the first floor, Patrick turns around from perusing a cookbook to a sign labeled 'LGBTQ+ Voices.' He’s lost sight of David by now, thinks he said something about heading upstairs to the art books, doesn’t really remember. His ears are full of cotton wool.

Voices collected and distilled down to a table’s worth of paper. If Patrick wrote a memoir, would it make the cut? Of course he’s married to a man and out to anyone who wants to know, but he sometimes feels like he skipped over some seminal step in his development as a queer man. Even that term, queer, he wonders if he’s deserving of.

With Rachel, he spent so much time doing what he thought was right he hardly spent time examining what was wrong. He was more ignorant than he was questioning. And then with David, it was such smooth sailing, such a feeling of being honestly right that how could he do anything but accept himself and what they had? Where was the self-discovery in being handed your destiny on a platter?

He gets a flash from the bar the night before, something he hadn’t realized he'd logged. The gaze of a younger man, Patrick guesses newly 21, landing on him and David as they held each other and sang along. At first, Patrick thought, he’s checking David out. Then, no, he’s checking out me. But there was something less sexual, more searching in his eyes. If Patrick had to put a word to it he might have said hope.

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to cry in public, though he thinks if he did David might actually be impressed and tell him it was a milestone of city life. That thought makes him laugh which goes a long way in avoiding the tears.

Eventually, he finds David upstairs pouting at a stack of coffee table books. “What did these ever do to you,” is out of Patrick’s mouth before he sees it’s a book of portraits by Sebastien Raine. “Oh, David,” he coos. "Do you wanna head home? We can post anonymous comments on his blog and then fool around?”

“Everyone thinks you're so innocent, Patrick Brewer, but you’re really just a sex-crazed mean girl.” Got it in one.

They don’t post any mean comments but they do fool around, unhurried and uncomplicated in the low light of the winter afternoon. They fall asleep for a bit - a side effect equally post-coital and post-consumption of excessive carbs.

When they wake, it’s dinner time and David orders in while Patrick flips channels.

"You do not know what it means to me to be able to get 5-star sushi delivered to my door on a Sunday night,” David says. “Please never make me leave here, Patrick. Wait. Stop!”

Patrick startles and drops the remote.

“Stop! _When Harry Met Sally_! Stay on this channel! Ugh, I get so sentimental for this movie this time of year.” David clambers back onto the bed and sidles up next to Patrick, eyes on the screen.

Patrick scans back over David’s words in his head. _Please never make me leave here, Patrick_. And that’s it. What he feared would happen. Two months was a trap. He feels like an idiot to have believed that someone as vibrant as David could be happy in Schitt’s Creek. Naive to assume he was making David happy enough to make up for all that someplace like New York could offer. David was creative, discerning, lively and New York matched him stride for stride.

“Is that what you really want?” Patrick asks, trying not to give away any emotion.

“To watch _When Harry Met Sally_? Umm, yeah. That’s why I told you not to change the channel.”

“No. To never leave New York. You said - ‘Patrick, please never make me leave here.’ Is that what you want?”

“Oh,” The pause between that and what follows takes a year off Patrick’s life. “I don’t know. I feel like I gave up on that dream a long time ago, really.” Another year. “I don’t think about it that much anymore.”

Patrick must be too bewildered, or too overwhelmed to show any recognizable emotion because David turns back to the movie with an “I love this part,” as if all Patrick had asked was does he still like the color blue.

*

If Patrick is overly quiet the next week David doesn't notice. And Patrick doesn’t feel too guilty about it either, the rush of customers and attention in the store’s opening week is distraction enough for them both. It’s exhausting, no familiar staff to back them up like in Schitt’s Creek. They work all day and fall into bed half asleep before even taking off their socks. They don’t have sex for a week. Well, except one morning when Patrick wakes up to David rocking against him. It’s so soft and sleepy, Patrick wonders if it happened or if it was the end of a dream.

Luckily, due to the workload, Patrick doesn’t even have a lot of time to obsess. But in the between moments, he tries to get himself used to living in the city rather than think about how he’s letting David down by not wanting to be here.

Patrick’s high school drama teacher taught that all stories can be categorized as either city stories or country stories. Place, she'd said, so greatly influences the events in our lives that looking at any outcome, any desire, any motivation cannot be possible without this consideration. That semester, spring of junior year, they were doing _The Wizard of Oz_. Patrick was cast as the Cowardly Lion and they’d had a discussion in rehearsal one day: Was this a country story about Kansas life? A city story about Oz? Or a story about a country girl tossed into city life? That push and pull is what drove the narrative. It was always about a matter of place.

While it’s just a theory, was maybe even an offhand comment by his teacher, he hasn’t been able to disprove it since. Every future performance ( _Cabaret_ \- city story) and every late-night rom-com ( _The Lake House_ \- country story) runs through this filter.

He’s never been able to take his own life out of this framing either. Apparently, the picture was about to change.

So far, Patrick's was a country story. He’s not running a farm or living like it’s the 18th century but his life is slower, less consumerist, less experienced than the life he sees belonging to a city person. David’s stories of life in New York certainly give evidence to his thesis. Cities are fast-paced, all about production and consumption and trading value. They provide the opportunity for greater culture and diversity. Patrick’s never had that before. He moved to Schitt’s Creek from a town so similar they could be interchangeable.

Well, almost. David was in Schitt’s Creek, and for him there is no substitution. Inside the cottage walls, or at the store on a slow day without interruptions, Patrick doesn’t live a city or country life. He lives in fucking outer space. Their life together expands beyond county limits, country borders, the geosphere. Alien forces were at work.

Here on planet earth, Patrick tries not to be overwhelmed by the stimuli. New York is a lot for him. He’s not sleeping great - hasn’t gotten used to the street noise. David sleeps like he’s dead. It’s not that he hates the fast pace, but it does exhaust him. Lunch, for example, is a production number. There are no less than 14 incredible options at any given moment and choosing between them is paralyzing. Gone are the days of the same Tropical sandwich every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, salads on the other two days. Patrick makes a spreadsheet of all the options to try and calm himself down. He works his way through the rotation, regardless of his taste, just to feel like he’s crossing something off a list.

*

The pop-up is open all seven days, and they manage to take a half-day off two weeks in. They leave Stevie to oversee the twenty-somethings they hired to help out.

“I don’t actually work for you," she calls after them as they walk out the door. “I’m only doing this as a favor and for the health of your marriage!”

David flips her off, laughing. Surely it’s just a joke.

“I know we're both exhausted, but I have a surprise,” David says as they make their back way to the apartment.

“Oh?” Patrick braces himself.

“I’m taking you out. Date night.” A good surprise, then. " _Three Sisters_ is up at New York Theatre Workshop. Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Florence Pugh are playing the sisters. Together for the first time since _Little Women_ , if you can believe our luck. The tickets were impossible to get but Alexis spent a week with Emma at a Turkish bath in Istanbul prepping for a role once so we pulled a favor. It’s not Broadway, I know, but it is the theatre where they filmed most of _Smash_."

Patrick is so in love. “Amazing. What time’s the show?”

“8pm. Dinner first?”

“Of course. Your choice.”

David is clearly prepared for that response. “Is pasta okay? I was thinking Bar Primi. And by thinking, I mean I made a reservation for 6:30. Enough time for a nap and a shower. Put on your Sunday best. I’m showing you off to the city!” David kisses him on the cheek.

The restaurant is like dining at Elmdale’s finest, times one thousand. David seems to know the hostess and takes great pleasure in the fact that they are still working at the restaurant while he’s an ‘entrepreneur' with a 'booming lifestyle brand.' Patrick laughs and lets him have it. He’s proud of their business, too. They eat spaghetti and clams and play footsie under the table. God, Patrick needed this. His face hurts from smiling.

The theatre is an intimate space, two hundred seats, and at total capacity due to the production’s starry cast and great reviews. They drink good wine out of little plastic cups. Patrick’s never seen the play before, but read it in college. The details escape him, but he remembers the broad strokes. It's about - surprise! - three sisters who moved away from Moscow for the country many years ago. They yearn for the lush life they once had, the dreams they never accomplished. Moscow represents all that they’ve lost.

Sitting in that theatre, David’s hands in his lap, Patrick thinks he hears the play for the first time. As the middle sister Masha’s great love, a solider named Vershinin, prepares to leave with his troops for the city, he feels his eyes prickle with tears. Is David sending him a message? _Take me back to Moscow._

You can have a good life outside of your greatest desires being fulfilled, Patrick knows that. There are things to enjoy - love, music, nature. Patrick feels suddenly lucky to have small dreams, to have accomplished in life more than he’d ever expected to. Patrick feels David’s loss. The curtain goes down as the three sisters convince themselves of how to move forward with much less than what they wanted.

And part of Patrick thinks, fuck that. David is not one of these women - uncoupled or in a loveless marriage, unfulfilled creatively, unseen by the world around them. He knows David is happy, in love, excited about how they spend each day. He believes David when he says he’s moved on from wanting this. But was Patrick the reason he gave up wanting? The reason David felt he couldn’t ask for it again?

“Who knew that turn of the century Russia would do it like this for me,” David says, with watery eyes, once the house lights are up. The play seems to have affected him too. Was it for the same reasons?

“Thank you for taking me, David.” Patrick tries to imbue his words with the subtext of _you can tell me anything._

“I’d forgotten what theatre this good was like. Don’t get me wrong, I love a Second Street Playhouse production as well as the next person, but this is. This doesn’t happen all the time.”

“It was fantastic. Really great. I’ve never seen anything like it.” That much was true. For all the local theatre productions and touring shows Patrick had seen in his life, this transcended. Despite all the other complicating feelings he was having in response, he would treasure this performance forever.

“The guy who played the captain - he was hot, no? Looks familiar. I think he dated Alexis. Maybe back in her silver fox phase.”

Patrick is about to quip back, something expectantly faux-jealous, when someone shouts David’s name from across the lobby.

“Is that the David Rose?” A women their age pushes towards them in the crowd. She’s wearing the Rick Owens puffy coat Patrick only recognizes because David had shown him a photo of it every day for the entirety of last December in a not-so-subtle attempt to try and get it as a Christmas present. The coat was nearly $2000. Patrick, in a total splurge to the tune of $250, got him a cashmere scarf instead. He can’t have been totally off base, David's wearing it today.

“What am I about to walk into?” Patrick says out of the side of his mouth, leaning into David.

“Celeste Mathers. We went to private school together. Lost touch for years. Met up again when we both lived here. Dated for one week by her calendar, three weeks by mine. On the scale of past relationships, 10 being the worst, she's only a 2.”

The competition approaches...“Celeste, my god, how long has it been?” David’s voice is high as a kite.

“It has to be almost ten years? I think the last time I saw you was your Christmas party. Does that sound right? Where have you been!”

Patrick can see David considering his approach, scanning through the various index cards, choosing what to reveal. “Well, in Williamsburg right now. But just visiting for a few months. This is Patrick, my husband.”

“Husband. David. Well, I never.” Celeste hits David on the shoulder playfully. Patrick tries not to outright laugh at the unimpressed look on David’s face.

“Well, I did.”

“Clearly!” She doesn’t really look anything but genuinely happy for him. _He’s cute,_ she mouths, not hiding it.

He cuts in. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you,” She replies, taking his hand. “I would introduce you to my other half but I think I lost him. I’m sure he’s already in the car. He hates this kind of stuff. Typical.” She doesn’t seem too mad about it, like how you tease someone you love.

Patrick shrugs a conciliatory _what can you do?_

“Well, I should go find him,” she continues. “But it was such a treat to see you, David. I mean that. Really. There's people in life - you’re one of those people - that you lose track of. And every time they pop into your head you think, I should really reach out to them. See if they are okay.” David is gripping into his bicep. "And you don’t reach out, obviously, and life goes on, and it happens again. And you don’t again. And then you run into them and they look so happy. What could be better than that? To know that whole time they were okay.” With two kisses to David’s cheeks, she’s out the door, down feathers and all.

“She was nice,” Patrick says after a long silence. David is quiet for longer still as they walk up to the L train. So long that Patrick assumed this line of conversation was closed.

“I just. I didn’t think anyone from here was ever thinking about me."

At a loss for big enough or meaningful enough words to conquer what David is working through, he takes the easy route, teases, “Oh, shut up, you’re unforgettable and you know it.”

It’s not the totally wrong thing to say, judging by the way David kisses him as they wait for the walk signal.

The subway ride home is handsy. Affectionate. Not that Patrick is complaining.

It’s one of those nights that they can hardly make it inside before pouncing. It really is a rare occasion. Not because their attraction has lessened, but constant access to each other’s bodies has taken away the need to rush. If someone is too tired, there’s always tomorrow.

“I kind of meant it as a joke earlier,” David says, just barely pulling away from Patrick’s mouth, “but I do like showing you off.” Patrick nips at his lower lip. “Being seen with you."

“I don’t mind, I know I’m your trophy husband. Comes with the gig.”

“Har. Har.” David slaps him on the ass, playful, ushering him into the bedroom.

“You want me for my bod. I get it.”

“There’s only room for one overconfident narcissist in this relationship, stand down.”

Stand down was an interesting choice of words, considering. “Do you really want that?” Patrick, on top of David now, grinds into him. David answers with his mouth but not his words.

Later, wrapped up in the covers, David, playing at the baby hairs on the back of his neck, says, “Thanks for being here with me. I know it’s not always easy for you. It means a lot.”

Patrick pretends to be asleep.

*

It’s a few days later, December 16th. Patrick remembers the date.

"Early Christmas present!" David says cheerfully, walking back into the store from an afternoon errand. “Okay, well, does it count as a present exactly if I didn’t pay for it? But I did trade a bottle of body milk with Annie over at Quimby’s, so it was premeditated. That must count for something.”

“How many years will it take for you to understand you can’t just take merchandise and -“

David cuts him off. “Here I am trying to give my husband a gift and this is the thanks that I get.”

“Hand it over.” Patrick can’t keep the amusement out of his voice. The item isn't wrapped, it’s just sitting in the recycled paper sleeve with the store’s logo stamped on the front in black ink. He slides out a book. On the cover is a vintage black and white photo of two men. The title, in bold pink letters: _When Brooklyn Was Queer._

“It’s history. Non-fiction. I thought you might like to read it while we're here. Scope out the former locations of some seedy back rooms. Wink wink.” David is casual, at ease.

Patrick’s panic bubbles over. If he doesn’t say it now, he thinks David will never ask. The thought of that lost potential resting on Patrick’s shoulders is too much.

“We should move here. To New York."

“Ha ha," David sing-songs. “Hilarious."

“I’m serious. I think we should move here.”

“Um - what? Sorry. I just…What?"

He steels himself. "The store was a great idea. I’m sure we could open up a permanent branch. Your sister is here. This place is made for you, David. You’re made for it."

"I don’t know what to say,” David says after a long pause. His face is unreadable. Patrick is dying inside.

"I don’t want to hold you back, David. I want you to be where you can -” What is he trying to say! “- reach higher. You never expected to stay in Schitt’s Creek. If we'd never met...” Oh god. “If we’d never met we both know that you’d have left with the rest of your family."

“Hold me back?"

“You are expansive, David. How can you be that in a town of a couple hundred people?"

“While I hear the compliment and take it, thank you, let’s back up to where you think you’re 'holding me back?'"

Patrick, incensed, snaps. “I’m just trying to support you! I’m just trying to go off of what you wanted!” The deja vu makes him spin. And, shit. He’s said this before. The fodder for his nightmares. The thought that almost kept them from getting back together all those years ago.

“Then maybe ask, Patrick. Maybe just ask me what I want.” David looks tired. David looks misunderstood. David looks like he does in the flashes of Patrick’s memory file labeled 'The Moments I’m Least Proud Of.'

 _I did ask you, I did ask_ , Patrick thinks. _And you said you gave up on that dream. I crushed that dream for you._

Which is exactly when two customers walk in, a father and daughter seeking something for mom. David sends a look Patrick takes for _this isn't over_ and heads off to make recommendations.

It’s a steady stream of clientele and anxiety for the few hours left until closing time. Patrick sits at the till making small talk and change.

He replays the conversation again and again and again in his mind.

*

The moment the doors are locked and they start for home Patrick tries, “David -"

“Can we not do this on the sidewalk? I’m not interested in being that cliché tonight.”

Patrick's mouth clamps shut. They’ll be home in less than ten. He can handle it. David lets him link an arm through his while they walk, so at least there’s that. At least whatever fight they're about to have isn’t without affection.

The rest of the walk is silent. Unlocking the door is silent. Patrick doesn’t know whether to welcome or fear the sound of the deadbolt clicking shut. It sounds final. Privacy, at last.

They hang up their coats and David gestures to the couch as if to say _let’s get this over with_. Patrick takes a seat.

"I’m sorry if this wasn’t clear after half a decade together and three years married but, Patrick. You are enough.”

Which is…not what Patrick was expecting him to say.

“Have you ever stopped to consider that the reason I look happy here is because you’re here with me? And that I look happy pretty much all the time when you’re around? Whatever amount of pleasure you get from thinking _I’m_ happy, thinking that _I’m_ fulfilled, thinking that _I’m_ where I’m supposed to be, don’t for a second think it doesn’t go both ways." Oh. “Three years ago, whatever I thought I was coming back for? It was already gone. I’m not… I don’t miss it anymore. What I would miss is _our_ life if you buy us a condo here trying to prove a point about your capacity for self-sacrifice."

When did David become the self-aware one in their partnership? Patrick’s such an idiot. “I’m so sorry, David. I assumed-”

“No, I don’t want to hear it.” And, what? Patrick gapes. Waiting. “I don’t want to hear you say you're sorry. I want to hear you say you are enough.”

Patrick hears the sob before he realizes it came from him. “I’m-" he tries, but can’t go on. Arms find him, warm and solid. He tucks his face into David’s neck and takes a breath that just ends up being another sob. What is wrong with him?

Patrick is dependable. Patrick has follow-through. Patrick talks David off the ledge when he gets too worked up about delayed product shipments or the latest episode of Real Housewives. Patrick does their taxes. Patrick barbecues. Patrick says I love you every morning and every night, makes sure David knows. This is how he offers his love. And in return he gets love.

Patrick thinks he knows David’s love is not conditional. Not hung on any one of these behaviors. Or, thinks he thought he knew? But maybe…maybe he didn’t believe it.

When Patrick was 11, his dad had to go away on business for two weeks, leaving him and his mom alone. _You’ve got to help out around the house,_ his dad had said. _Help take care of our Marcy_. So, he played at little grown-up things like addressing and stamping her letters, making sure to keep his room really clean, bringing her a cup of tea at night, and even delivering it on a little tray with milk and sugar.

When his dad returned, he kept up the act. He loved to see his mother smile and to see her put her feet up at the end of a long day and be taken care of. Why would I stop doing this for her if it makes her happy?, he'd thought. It went on for a few more weeks uninterrupted until Patrick was enjoying a slice of cake at the sleepover birthday party of his friend Keith and got a glimpse of the time. He burst into tears, running out of the room to find Keith’s mother. _I need to call my dad,_ he sobbed. Keith’s mom ran a comforting hand through his hair. _Shh, okay. It’s okay, Patty. I’m dialing._ When the phone was handed over, his father hardly got out _Are you alright, son?_ before he blurted, _I forgot mom's tea! Is she mad? Do you think she’ll ever forgive me??_

 _Oh, Pat, your mother is right here. She’ll tell you herself she’s not the least bit upset. Let me give her the phone._ Of course she still loved him, of course she was grateful that he wanted to take care of her, but she loved him with or without the tea, his mom explained.

On the afternoon of the day he came out to his parents, when David had left his apartment after holding him for the better part of thirty minutes, Patrick sat alone in his studio and cried 11-year-old boy tears about what he had to do, praying they’d love him anyway.

Today, David plants a kiss on his forehead, whispers, and Patrick can feel the words on his skin, “You're enough."

It was obviously the root of the cycle he got into with Rachel in their twenties, the root of his inability to know himself for so long. After one particularly nasty break up when they had both just graduated college, Patrick really thought it was over. He hadn't heard from Rachel in a month, more than double the amount of time it usually took her to reach out. But then she texted: _If you want to make it up to me, I have an idea._ The relief hit him the same time as the dread. A simple way out of his guilt, a simple way deeper into his unhappiness at the same time. Which was worse?

He called her an hour later, not speaking over the line until he heard her say, _Move in with me. Let’s get an apartment._ Something uncontrollable inside him reached out and said _okay_ far too fast for him to even examine why he wanted to say _no, it’s over_ instead.

Today, he claws into the sweater on David’s back. David says, “I love you. That’s it. That’s enough."

It was the instinct that kicked in the first time David said, excitable, full of possibility, holding a blueberry muffin - _we would be moving with them_. He knew his relationship with David was different than all others before. They were getting married in a few days, for god’s sake. He could ask for what he wanted. He could say: no, I want to stay here. But he owed it to David and to the light in David's face, to at least consider the option. He made a list, pros and cons. He wasn’t making a choice because he thought it was what David wanted him to say, right? Maybe he wasn’t telling the whole truth, maybe he weighted David’s side a bit more, but he wasn’t lying when he said he was excited just to be wherever David was. He was. He is.

When David kidnapped and blindfolded him the next morning, it all happened so fast, so beautifully, that it’s possible Patrick never actually had to confront how uncomfortable the idea of moving really made him.

David who stayed for him. David who makes Patrick laugh. David who managed the renovation of their entire house. David who has brilliant ideas about how to advance their brand. David who shops for Patrick's pants (well, that one may be self-serving). David who organized Patrick’s parent’s anniversary party at a Chili’s because that's what they wanted. David who just wants Patrick to understand what he’s worth.

Patrick’s done crying now, he thinks. It’s hard to tell through his swollen eyes and stuffy nose. He looks up at David and breathes out a laugh. A laugh of relief and comprehension. For all the motivations Patrick assigned to him, all the dreams he assumed deferred, all the reasons he thought David stayed - what was real? And what - out of fear, lack of confidence, lack of trust - was imagined?

“David,” he tastes the name. Kisses it. Crawls all the way onto David’s lap so he can line up their eyes.

He takes a few seconds, or maybe it's a few days, tracing a thumb across David's brow, around his eye, down his cheek to swipe across his lower lip, down his chin, adam’s apple, clavicle, spreading a hand flat over David’s chest.

This is what’s real, Patrick thinks, and says, “I'm enough."

**Author's Note:**

> Well.  
> Thanks :)


End file.
